What Does T-Shirt Printing Involve?
June 3, 2009
There are three particular methods usually employed to accomplish screen printing that produces printed garments for promotions, merchandise and fashion. ‘Spot Color’ printing is the method most often used for a large variety of graphics. It is also the best suited method for such a task. Spot colour printing is best used when printing graphics which are usually not very photographic in nature.
A graphic designer usually chooses the ink colours used to reproduce the graphic images, and they are all Pantone specified. Pantone coated or uncoated colour references are chosen to specify the ink colours of the design. Used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique pantone name and number, the Pantone matching system is an international colour reference.
When colour identity and uniformity is an issue, for example in branded promotional garments or a large selection of products, this method of spot color printing works very well.
Another method of t-shirt screen printing used is called ’4 Colour Process’. The type of printing that is used, relates mainly to images dealing with either photography or illustration, as well as having a large degree of colours, tones, and graduations used. The method used to print images found in magazines and books is the 4 colour process as well.
The transparent inks blend with one another on a plain white backdrop to recreate each of the colours and shades present in the original. This is of course a rather more difficult process to achieve on a fabric than it is on paper. But the method used is about the same. The t shirt printing that you choose will work only on white articles of clothing and will not show correctly on coloured items. When garment screen printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. The print set-up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+ The artwork is separated into various colours and shades using a method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image.
This method is used by every printer and is very popular for reproducing heavy metal and fantasy images taken from CD artwork and reproduced on black t-shirts for band merchandising. Due to the higher set up prices which includes the separating of the colour as well as an increased amount of colours used to print the pictures, this works out to be the most expensive way of printing.
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